Adulthood

Oh the Wonder.

http://www.regretsy.com/2012/01/28/weekend-flashback-das-poop/

I'm sort of a DIY disaster in the making. Check back to this earlier post for proof. Or even this one.

Inspired by these little monsters I found online, I decided to try my hand at sewing a little stuffed ugly yet incredibly endearing creature.

Several hours, strained eyes, lots of lost seed beads and a significant blow to my hopes of a future Etsy store and fortune later, I came up with Maximillian Robespierre! The thing I created in the post, 'Horrible Little Guy.' No, the irony that the little stuffed creature of horror named after one of the most vicious lieutenants of the French Revolution is wearing a bow tie, isn't lost on me.

Today, I use him (or his backside, which is an ugly brown-turqoise print) as an eraser for my dry erase board.

This is why some people should just stick to careers.

Thank God I didn't get that sewing machine.

Though it's only a matter of time. Muahahaha.

Oh yes - and if you know what etsy.com is, please go to the above, brilliant link :)

******

Edit: People who may or may not read my blog. Pleaaase comment! I sort of feel like my blog is like my attempts at arts & crafts. A lot of enthusiasm from my side when I'm sort of blind to the disaster that it truly is. Even if it's just to say, I am here. You don't even have to identify yourself. I think the 1,091 hits are just from bots, my sister and the friends I force to read my blog. 

Change of Pace

I kind of wish I could go back to the pace of life that involved the beach, friends and no constant thoughts about what my next step is and how to get to where I need to be.

I want barbecues, long summer nights and no sense of urgency.

Everything else feels like a race to get back to that place when really, it's taking me far far away.

Focus. Come what may.

Elliot's Beach, Chennai

2010

Stream of Neo-Pseudo-Hippie Capitalistesque Theoroid Consciousness

I'm beginning to think, more and more, that the ability to keep driving steadily or towards your goal on shifting sands is the true mark of strength and ability.

The reality of today is that there are over seven billion of us on this small planet. It's getting more crowded as we speak, world's are intersecting and finding your own little hermetically sealed biosphere is becoming, frankly, unrealistic.

Of course, I am talking from the background of my own privileged and rather chaotic upbringing, so perhaps take what I say with a pinch of salt.

In the future, I really think that we are going to have to learn the art of symbiosis. Of syzygy. Because without that, without some complexity in our understanding of ourselves in relation to the world that surrounds us, we are ultimately, unsuccessful human beings.

If that sounds too esoteric for you, take the oil crisis. If nothing else is evidence of the growing interdependence of nations, I don't know what is. Oh well also, the Eurozone crisis and worldwide economic slowdown that was triggered by a subprime mortgage loan crisis in the United states. The Arab spring protests that have spread across the Middle East. Kolaveri Di. When a butterfly flaps it's wings in Mexico, there's a hurricane in NY. Chaos theory anyone?

It fascinates me, the way that so many world's intersect. And how, in a happy human being, they find harmony. "But what is happiness but the simple harmony between a man and his life?" said Camus. I spent this morning arguing politics with friends in LA and Chennai. I came out of my room to find my grandmother. I can't explain it, but switching gears like that sometimes comes like a splash of cold water on your face until you accept that all of it, is part of one. Who you are, your life experience and the world that you live in.

We're so taught to believe in the pre-packaged life and labeled ideals that very few of us ever strive to embrace the unique person we truly are. I never have. We [or perhaps I should say I was] are told that to be a good person, is the ultimate goal. But then, we're told that certain choices will devalue the "culture and traditions" we come from and the implication - we will no longer be good. We are told that other choices are "unpatriotic" and if we make them - we will no longer be good. That in order to be good, there is only one way. Doesn't that send the message that if you live any other way, you are either a shade of gray, or worse, total evil? That type of morality - the you vs. us type. The type that relies on static definitions to tailor actions to be part of a society, is not the type that I can live with anymore.

I'm sure most people come to this realization much earlier than twenty four, or much later. It seems like odd timing to be thinking of the above.

I live amongst many social structures, many societies and many values and a world that is constantly changing. What morality do I choose that allows me to respect people around me, in all their plurality, as human beings? What morality allows for the breadth of differences that make us who we are? I haven't found it in the the traditions of my childhood. I haven't found it in the strict practice of culture or religion. Which has led me to believe that perhaps my morality should stem from the fact that we are all humans and therefore, deserving of respect. Maybe I need to reverse things and make the intended effect, the source of the rules. It's not a new idea, at all, but one in which I am finally beginning to see power and dynamism. I'm tired of an ethos ruled by fear of what happens if I don't follow it. I want the moral imperative to question the world around me and explore the what ifs and if nots, not be told what will happen, what should happen and how I should live my life.

Again, I'm pretty sure most people discover some form of the above in their rebellious teenage years.

The truth is, that it's incredibly difficult to live by the above morality. It's incredibly difficult not to sink into a way of thought and nest about - because in times of fear and doubt, well we're all human and in our differences there is unity, doesn't really serve too well for comfort.

I don't have the answer yet for what I do when I feel scared or uncomfortable. I know you are supposed to show strength and deal with it, but it is so difficult, and I am so used to cushions from the truth of what I want this world to be and the place that I want in it that I fall back into old ways.

Consistency isn't something human, I suppose? Errare humanum est?

Anyway, just writing random things, hopefully someday this evolves into a real post. Right now, they're just fleeting, stray thoughts about the nature of things.

From Lisa Graham Art

Snapshots of Istanbul

My favorite part of Istanbul was taking a late afternoon ferry to Buyukada, one of the Prince's Islands. The ride back, we sat on the floor of the top deck of the ferry and looked out onto a beautiful sunset, the Bosphorous and listened to Bon Iver.

You can't have an Istanbul album without a mention of the Grand Bazaar. It's far from off the beaten trail, but the Grand Bazaar has it's own charm. Besides the fact that there are beautiful photo opportunities.

Atheism 2.0

For some time now, I have been trying to paint a picture of my relationship with spirituality and religion. My Facebook information on religion reads - "Hindu/Haven't Figured It Out" and that has been the status quo for sometime now.

I was raised with the mythology and ritual of my traditional Hindu grandparents. In fact, my first language was Telugu - as spoken by the Pandavas and Kauravas of the ancient Indian epic, The Mahabharata, which at the time, had been televised as a hugely popular sitcom. At the age of 3, much to the amusement of my family, I would narrate in great detail the entire Mahabharata including all those long, complicated names that I can no longer make head or tail of. I sat down to all the requisite poojas, loved prasadam, enjoyed wearing the colorful pattu langas that accompanied any religious festivity and of course, the sense of peace and beauty of the small household altars decorated with incense, fresh flowers, tiny sugar cubes and rows of ants marching to and fro, perhaps also making their worship.

I went to a Montessori school in a church for the first three years of my formal schooling. There were 18 of us from K-5 grade with 3 teachers of rather liberal sentiment concerning spirituality(Tarsilla, Cheryl and Stephen's mom, lol) and who imparted to all their students an overwhelming sense of joy and wonder about the world that surrounded them. We sang the head teacher's favorite Christmas Carol every year, learnt science by hiking through local nature trails and observing tadpoles, birds, skunk cabbage and getting stuck in the mud. We celebrated Valentine's day by playing 'Hug, Hug, Kiss' (instead of Duck, Duck, Goose - which we played through the winter in the Church graveyard), celebrated Japanese New Year by eating rice and fish with our hands, put on a yearly Thanksgiving play, dyed Easter eggs at Easter, made home-made Pumpkin ice-cream in the Church kitchen at Hallowen, learnt about Bees and honey by tasting about 10 different types of honey from different flowers in the Springtime and ran a minor "coal mining" operation in the church backyard. There were never any overt religious dialogue or preaching, but looking back, this period feels like the most deeply religious of my life.

Religion was a part of my life in beautiful ways as a child. Since I was fortunate enough to have a magical childhood where I never really needed to pray to God for anything because I had everything - there was never even any room for disillusionment. Religion has always been a deep part of me, not for spiritual or mystical reasons, but for the simple idea that it has such positive and comforting associations.

That being said, the past few years of this so called 'adulthood' have made me realize that I absolutely do no believe in the existence of a particular entity called God. I believe in the Divine and the beautiful and the kind, whatever that is and wherever or however it is centered. I do believe that there is something greater than me and every other individual on this planet. I catch bits of that feeling when I listen to great music, read about a particular interesting aspect of physiology, stand outside in the sunshine or look at a little baby smiling. But to attribute the beauty of all of those things to the greatness of 'God' seems a little simplistic and frankly, a little insulting. Not insulting - I can't find the word - but somehow it seems to detract from the beauty of those objects.

When people ask me what religion I follow I have been apt to say Hindu, because Hinduism in it's purest form allows for freedom of interpretation with respect to the exact definition of God. I have not really pushed to define myself religiously. Because I consider some of Atheistic argument just as reactionary and pointless as hardline religious people. I have always felt, but never ever really expressed, that a synthesis of the two and personal freedom somehow allied to a sense of community would be the strongest scaffolding on which to build my life. However, I've never really found such a philosophy articulated well. As the above video describes, I've always felt rather squeamish about the doctrine that surrounds the ritualism that I sometimes find comforting and the seeming harshness in using absolute rationality as a guide to my life.

Atheism 2.0 as explained in the video above is the best expression of many of the things I feel personally. It is almost an anthropological approach to the construction of a scaffolding from which to reach new heights of personal growth and development.

Perhaps it's a result of growing up in plenty, but I like when I'm told that I don't have to compromise, that I can have the best of both worlds - because there are so many, and they're never 'hermetically sealed'.

Maybe, I've found my religion.

Book Review Time

India: A Portrait by Patrick French

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Patrick French's 'India' is the only non-fiction book on India that I have ever finished.

I've tried reading John Keay's 'India: A History', Mark Tully's 'No Full Stops in India' and even some Dalrymple, but have never been able to get beyond the first half.

Perhaps, poised as I am to leave this country in a few short months, Patrick French's book was extremely topical.

All that aside, I truly loved this book. Patrick French's point of view on India is that of an outsider who has spent years getting to know and love this country. He is on the inside enough to understand the multitude of cultural idiosyncrasies that almost define this country without being entrenched and unable to see the humor and absurdity of life in India. Although he is Britisher, he does not approach his writing with nationalistic loyalties, but a curious observer of a nation of curiosities.

This approach, I feel, is what makes 'India: An Intimate Biography of 1.2 Billion People' - the contradiction in the title resonates as a theme through the entire book - a page turner. I literally, could not put the book down and found myself reading about the economic history and development of India while I brushed my teeth.

I have not read much non-fiction, so I suppose I'm not qualified to really pass judgement on Patrick French's skill as a writer, but I think that this man has the quiet brilliance (of HTC - haha, just kidding) that is the mark of a great mind. He has the ability to discuss the technicalities of economics and politics without becoming too pedantic and always keeping in mind the contextual, human story that drives political and economic change. I believe that his understanding of society, that it is nothing more than a collection of human beings bound together, loosely, by random historical, cultural and economic events, really frames the way he understands India. And he never, just as he discusses later in the book, falls prey to the Western impulse of categorizing and defining India by rules that have no meaning in it's context.

Patrick French's 'India', is a balanced and ultimately optimistic account of a country's modern history that places you in a much better position to understand the India. As an introduction to non-fiction literature on this country, I would say this book is pretty much perfect. It is a page turner, contains enough anecdotes that are entirely relatable and is sufficiently factual and technical to feed your intellect. For more advanced readers, it may not be a sophisticated or analytical enough account, but for me, it was just perfect. Finishing the book felt as heartbreaking as it will to leave the country two months from now.





View all my reviews